In a typical Evaluation Specification, which forms the core of an RFP (Request for Proposal), you will have requirements that are logically related. It is good practice to group logically related requirements together.

When speaking about functional requirements, the term 'feature' comes into mind. A feature is a set of logically related functional requirements that provides a capability to the user or provides functionality that contributes towards the overall fitness of a product.

However, in other domains, such as non-functional product requirements or business partner related requirements, we cannot associate the term 'feature' with a group of logically related requirements. For this reason, the Evaluator's Application Suite (EAS) uses the more neutral term 'Requirement Group' to relate to a group of logically related requirements.

The following general considerations will help you in the definition of requirement groups:

• A requirement group should not contain more than 5 requirements.
• All requirements in a group must provide the same relative benefit. Estimate the relative benefit that each requirement provides on a scale of 0 to 4, where 0 indicates negligible benefit and 4 means enormously valuable.
• All requirements in a group must be assigned the same relative penalty. Estimate the relative penalty the organization would suffer if the requirement were not met. Again, a scale of 0 to 4 is helpful, where 0 indicates essentially no penalty and 4 means a very serious downside.

The 'Requirement Group Weight' lets you specify a weighting factor, which expresses the relative benefit and relative penalty as a combined value.